I walked awkwardly into a sterile waiting room that would’ve been better suited for a travel agency or a dentist office than a “Career Optimization Lab”. 17-year old me didn’t quite understand how significant a moment that afternoon was about to be, just going through the motions to make my parents happy, get a college diploma, just biding my time while I figured things out for real.

They tested and probed me. Aptitude quizzes, psych evaluations, EEG suction cups stuck to my temples as I answered weird questions like “Would you rather work out in the open or near like-minded people?”, couldn’t both be true? did I have to make a choice right then and there?

Ultimately, I got two clear answers, supposedly backed by the latest aptitude sciences. I was either to study to become a product design engineer or an anthropologist of some kind. Wasn’t much of a choice, to be honest, my father would’ve never accepted me *not* becoming an engineer.

A decade and a half has passed, and my collegiate journey has had a lot more twists and turns than what these Career Optimizers or my parents could’ve predicted.

Dropout. Attempts to make it on my own as a freelance industrial designer with my own CAD/CAM workshop (complete with a 3D printer, Laser cutter, and a friend of a friend who built a CNC router from scratch), accidentally stumbling into a master's degree without a bachelor’s, now doubly so. E-commerce, digital marketing, digital business MBA. Where did anthropology or design end up along the way?

I’ve asked myself this question for the past decade.

When I traded my 3D printing and CAD workshop for digital marketing, I pointed fingers at my lack of selling skills. What point was there in making the best products I could, slaving away over a workbench at 3am when I could barely make back the manufacturing costs of my work?

The digital sphere offered distribution. Make one product, sell to millions. If you could find a way to stand out among the crowd, that is.

Physical products are constrained by material costs, manufacturing, the laws of physics. There’s very little limitations to software. . Understand the ones and zeros well enough and there would be no more senseless nights spent working on custom jobs. I would make digital products to define a generation, and use social media and content to their fullest to reach every corner of the globe. I’d show them.

And now, a decade’s past. I’ve reached the thousands, maybe even millions; and left a piece of myself behind somewhere.

Working in tech isn’t what it used to be.

I’ve been noticing how this pub has unintentionally become my therapy against the current state of tech and our world. And while I do believe strongly in the topics I’ve written about, I don’t quite like watching myself become reactionary.

I don’t want it to come across like I’m dealing with some kind of early onset middle-age crisis. It’s just tough to bottle up so many opinions after being in the trenches so long. I ran forward, ground the grind, rose to whatever top I may have dreamt of back in my CAD workshop. I finally get to speak from experience, voice my concerns without fear of sounding naive or inexperienced.

It’s no news to anybody that today’s tech is misguided. There are narratives being spun by charismatic, almost inhuman billionaires; same as always. But we’re starting to see past the hype and smokescreens. People are losing jobs, and homes, and lives because of irresponsible adoption without the proper guardrails or forethought.

Scratch that. There *is* forethought in today’s tech. Everyone is screaming for the hype train to stop. It’s just that no one in charge of a publicly traded company would ever dare heed us.

This is the part where I spin this piece back into a hopeful message.

Yes. Tech today is misguided, CEOs and VCs won’t stop until the music does. But that doesn’t mean the technology coming out of this frenzy is all bad. It’s just being shoe-horned into our lives the wrong way.

No one wants a chatbot to replace their search engine, no one wants generative AI in WhatsApp stickers. But, we could use LLMs to build bridges between people. Let our radicalized world become a little more interconnected with a nice buffer zone deprived of engagement algorithms; find a catered approach to education for pupils from all walks of life, lower the barriers of information.

The topic I care the most, and I hope to eventually get across in a non-whiney way, is that we’re trying to find shortcuts where sometimes the craft is what makes something valuable.

What’s the motivation or drive behind today’s products? Oftentimes the answer just ends up being “Get a piece of the pie before someone else beats you to it”. Very little is aimed at solving an actual problem everyday people have. And worse, the people making the decisions are still falling for it.

Iteration is important, but only as long as it has a direction and learning.

All it takes to achieve this, is to take back the tech. Same as we’ve always done. You do not need to pay a subscription to use an LLM and take advantage of its perks. The companies pushing them into every piece of software have also been kind enough to distribute open source versions of their models.

Similar to how the p2p web still keeps most of what offers solace on the very dead internet, or localized IoT experiments fulfil the promises the corporations could never afford to, or how your right to modify and repair any smart device also allows you to modify its operating system to suit your needs.

Technology is meant to adapt to whomever is using it. To enable and open doors. We’ve grown too used to the convenience of someone making those decisions for us. But while many decry the death of the internet, I’m more excited than ever for the day we realize we can. just. quit.

Quit the gated gardens, like the cypherpunks and cyberpirates of old would’ve wanted. The tool itself doesn’t need to be used for extraction, it’s only us letting go of control that’s allowing all this to happen.

A lot of times, when people speak of warmer or cozier software, they usually imply sacrifices in usability, reproducibility or polish. I don’t think that’s the case: we’re at a point where my CAD workshop dream of a decentralized production line is quickly becoming true.

It’s entirely possible for a team of engineers to make a 3D printable product, another team to polish software, and through open source & public participation, a product to reach the level of polish we expect from any corporation.

Physical products are constrained by the laws of the real world. It’s easier to change a line of code than it is to shave off a millimeter of material. Tech reaches millions when just one person might do the trick.

I’m filling myself with the courage to start iterating towards a warmer, yet still usable type of tech. And I’d love to hear from you. Sometimes when posting these articles, I feel like I’m screaming into the void (as many do), and I’d really appreciate a group of people to bounce ideas off of so we can all learn and experiment.

Message Alejandro "Kairon" Arango

I walked awkwardly into a sterile waiting room that would’ve been better suited for a travel agency or a dentist office than a “Career Optimization Lab”. 17-year old me didn’t quite understand how significant a moment that afternoon was about to be, just going through the motions to make my parents happy, get a college diploma, just biding my time while I figured things out for real.

They tested and probed me. Aptitude quizzes, psych evaluations, EEG suction cups stuck to my temples as I answered weird questions like “Would you rather work out in the open or near like-minded people?”, couldn’t both be true? did I have to make a choice right then and there?

Ultimately, I got two clear answers, supposedly backed by the latest aptitude sciences. I was either to study to become a product design engineer or an anthropologist of some kind. Wasn’t much of a choice, to be honest, my father would’ve never accepted me *not* becoming an engineer.

A decade and a half has passed, and my collegiate journey has had a lot more twists and turns than what these Career Optimizers or my parents could’ve predicted.

Dropout. Attempts to make it on my own as a freelance industrial designer with my own CAD/CAM workshop (complete with a 3D printer, Laser cutter, and a friend of a friend who built a CNC router from scratch), accidentally stumbling into a master's degree without a bachelor’s, now doubly so. E-commerce, digital marketing, digital business MBA. Where did anthropology or design end up along the way?

I’ve asked myself this question for the past decade.

When I traded my 3D printing and CAD workshop for digital marketing, I pointed fingers at my lack of selling skills. What point was there in making the best products I could, slaving away over a workbench at 3am when I could barely make back the manufacturing costs of my work?

The digital sphere offered distribution. Make one product, sell to millions. If you could find a way to stand out among the crowd, that is.

Physical products are constrained by material costs, manufacturing, the laws of physics. There’s very little limitations to software. . Understand the ones and zeros well enough and there would be no more senseless nights spent working on custom jobs. I would make digital products to define a generation, and use social media and content to their fullest to reach every corner of the globe. I’d show them.

And now, a decade’s past. I’ve reached the thousands, maybe even millions; and left a piece of myself behind somewhere.

Working in tech isn’t what it used to be.

I’ve been noticing how this pub has unintentionally become my therapy against the current state of tech and our world. And while I do believe strongly in the topics I’ve written about, I don’t quite like watching myself become reactionary.

I don’t want it to come across like I’m dealing with some kind of early onset middle-age crisis. It’s just tough to bottle up so many opinions after being in the trenches so long. I ran forward, ground the grind, rose to whatever top I may have dreamt of back in my CAD workshop. I finally get to speak from experience, voice my concerns without fear of sounding naive or inexperienced.

It’s no news to anybody that today’s tech is misguided. There are narratives being spun by charismatic, almost inhuman billionaires; same as always. But we’re starting to see past the hype and smokescreens. People are losing jobs, and homes, and lives because of irresponsible adoption without the proper guardrails or forethought.

Scratch that. There *is* forethought in today’s tech. Everyone is screaming for the hype train to stop. It’s just that no one in charge of a publicly traded company would ever dare heed us.

This is the part where I spin this piece back into a hopeful message.

Yes. Tech today is misguided, CEOs and VCs won’t stop until the music does. But that doesn’t mean the technology coming out of this frenzy is all bad. It’s just being shoe-horned into our lives the wrong way.

No one wants a chatbot to replace their search engine, no one wants generative AI in WhatsApp stickers. But, we could use LLMs to build bridges between people. Let our radicalized world become a little more interconnected with a nice buffer zone deprived of engagement algorithms; find a catered approach to education for pupils from all walks of life, lower the barriers of information.

The topic I care the most, and I hope to eventually get across in a non-whiney way, is that we’re trying to find shortcuts where sometimes the craft is what makes something valuable.

What’s the motivation or drive behind today’s products? Oftentimes the answer just ends up being “Get a piece of the pie before someone else beats you to it”. Very little is aimed at solving an actual problem everyday people have. And worse, the people making the decisions are still falling for it.

Iteration is important, but only as long as it has a direction and learning.

All it takes to achieve this, is to take back the tech. Same as we’ve always done. You do not need to pay a subscription to use an LLM and take advantage of its perks. The companies pushing them into every piece of software have also been kind enough to distribute open source versions of their models.

Similar to how the p2p web still keeps most of what offers solace on the very dead internet, or localized IoT experiments fulfil the promises the corporations could never afford to, or how your right to modify and repair any smart device also allows you to modify its operating system to suit your needs.

Technology is meant to adapt to whomever is using it. To enable and open doors. We’ve grown too used to the convenience of someone making those decisions for us. But while many decry the death of the internet, I’m more excited than ever for the day we realize we can. just. quit.

Quit the gated gardens, like the cypherpunks and cyberpirates of old would’ve wanted. The tool itself doesn’t need to be used for extraction, it’s only us letting go of control that’s allowing all this to happen.

A lot of times, when people speak of warmer or cozier software, they usually imply sacrifices in usability, reproducibility or polish. I don’t think that’s the case: we’re at a point where my CAD workshop dream of a decentralized production line is quickly becoming true.

It’s entirely possible for a team of engineers to make a 3D printable product, another team to polish software, and through open source & public participation, a product to reach the level of polish we expect from any corporation.

Physical products are constrained by the laws of the real world. It’s easier to change a line of code than it is to shave off a millimeter of material. Tech reaches millions when just one person might do the trick.

I’m filling myself with the courage to start iterating towards a warmer, yet still usable type of tech. And I’d love to hear from you. Sometimes when posting these articles, I feel like I’m screaming into the void (as many do), and I’d really appreciate a group of people to bounce ideas off of so we can all learn and experiment.

Message Alejandro "Kairon" Arango